The Beauty of the Beast [Dramione]

An Escape Plan

Whoohoo! New chapters! Fun stuff...

I'm updating this chapter as a procrastination for my Math HW, which is actually a bad idea seeing as I'm scraping by with a C+ and my teacher's getting pissed.

So halfway through this, I was at about 1,000 words, my computer restarted the page, and i ended up losing all of my work...I was so pissed, and so I had to rewrite it, and of course it's never good second time around, because you're trying to remember what you had gotten done, and it just ends up sounding choppy and gross and eugh...

Anyway, here is my re-written chapter. See you all at the bottom!

Disclaimer: I do NOT own the Harry Potter Series!

Hermione awoke early that morning, idly wondering what Bellatrix had planned for her today as she sat on the cold ground. She had no concept of time down in the cellar, but the sun creeping through the small opening high up in the wall led her to believe it was somewhere between 8 and 9 in the morning.

She was alone.

That's odd...Hermione mused. Usually Bellatrix is here by now, the first bird gets the worm. The first pureblood gets the mudblood. Or something along those lines. However much Hermione loved frustrating Bellatrix, it always ended in more punishment for her, and her resistant victories were short-lived.

Oh how she longed for the chance to have Bellatrix on the other side of her wand. She would avenge every one of her friends' deaths, and extra. If only she were free.

Free. The word floated around in her head, like the sunlight that taunted her through the hole in the wall. She still had yet to conceive a plan, so unlike her. She was so uneasy in this environment, it disturbed her. It wasn't a normal prisoner situation, that she could handle. Some days Bellatrix came, some days she didn't, but it was always the same. She never asked questions, she only used Hermione as her guinea pig for torture methods. Hermione was being broken, and she knew it.

She didn't know of Bellatrix's weaknesses, if she had any, or how to use them to escape. Bellatrix could not easily be fooled, and Hermione wouldn't know where to start. But the way that Malfoy talked to her, threatened her, made her think that Bellatrix wasn't the one in charge, as long as she was being kept here. There would be no point in trying to use Bellatrix to escape, if she were not the higher authority. Malfoy would be much easier to manipulate anyway, and much safer. Safer? Hermione didn't know. It almost seemed like Bellatrix was afraid of him. She contemplated that. She could use Malfoy to get rid of his sadistic aunt, and then she could escape without fear of consequence.

But what about Malfoy? He's a ruthless killing machine. There's no way you could hope to escape alive.

But Hermione had seen the emotion in his outburst yesterday; the uncertainty in his eyes, the childish fear. And she could definitely use that to her advantage. All she had to do was manipulate his emotions, his thoughts, and when the opportunity arose to escape, hopefully Malfoy would be too conflicted to comprehend what had happened or follow.

Approaching footsteps jerked her out of her thoughts, alerting her of a visitor, and she could tell that it was not Bellatrix. These footsteps weren't eager and quick, ready to torture, they were almost unwilling.

Step One of Escape Plan: Manipulate Malfoy in action. She thought grimly, standing up, he legs shaking, to face the doorway.

Only moments later, there was the sound of a key turning in a rusty lock, and the door swung open with a BANG! Draco Malfoy strode into the room. Hermione was almost disappointed to notice that his attire was much more reserved than yesterday's robe and pants, that had so nicely revealed his sculpted chest.